Diversity of the mind as the key to successful creativity at Unilever

Citation

Mostert, N.M. (2007), "Diversity of the mind as the key to successful creativity at Unilever", Human Resource Management International Digest, Vol. 15 No. 5. https://doi.org/10.1108/hrmid.2007.04415ead.009

Diversity of the mind as the key to successful creativity at Unilever

Diversity of the mind as the key to successful creativity at Unilever

Mostert N.M. Creativity and Innovation Management (UK), March 2007, Vol. 16 No. 1, Start page: 93, No. of pages: 8

Purpose – Examines the nature of creative teams and asks if diversity contributes to their ability to develop innovative ideas. Design/methodology/approach – Based on the author’s experience of facilitating teams in creativity sessions at Unilever, discusses what creativity is, and how to develop and manage diversity in creativity teams. Presents research at Unilever in which 100 creativity sessions were evaluated by a survey of problem owners (78 responding) to understand the factors that make such sessions successful, including the impact of diversity. Findings – Concludes from the research that creativity is a skill that can be learned; that barriers that might prevent ideas being implemented need to be identified before a creativity session; that setting up a large creativity team is not critical for generating innovative solutions to problems – working alone or in pairs can be sufficient; and that having a diverse creativity team is not a guarantee of success. Underlines that diversity of mind, not individual characteristics, is the key to creativity. Research limitations/implications – Outlines the research methods. Originality/value – Looks at the factors that affect the success of creativity teams in practice.ISSN: 0963-1690Reference: 36AH131

Keywords: Creativity, Diversity management, Teams, Unilever, Problem solving